Please note all vocabulary words are fair game on the midterm. Below I have listed concepts that you
should have an understanding of, beyond just the definition.
History of Psychology
1. Important people:
A. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, John Locke, William Wundt, Edward Titchner, William
James
1. Which psychologists believed in nature? Nurture?
B. What was Descartes theory of how our brain controlled our reflexes?
2. The definition of Psychology
3. Know the key words for each perspective:
A. Structuralism (psychologist?), Functionalism (psychologist?), Behaviorist,
Humanistic(psychologist?), Psychodynamic(psychologist?), Cognitive,
Biological, Social-cultural, Gestalt, Evolutionary, Eclectic
B. What led to the ‘failure’ of structuralism? Functionalism?
4. Three levels of analysis
5. Psychologist vs. Psychiatrist
6. Applied vs. Research
Research Methods
1. Scientific method verses intuition
A. Hindsight bias
2. Case study, Survey, Naturalistic Observation, experimental research – pros and cons of
each
3. Correlation
A. Correlation coefficient (range?), cause and effect, illusory correlation
B. What is correlational research useful for? Correlation vs. causation?
4. Experimentation
A. Random assignment, experimental group, control group, independent variable,
confounding variables, dependent variable, double blind procedure
B. Operational definitions – be able to identify examples
C. Central tendency (mode, median, mean) and measures of variation (range,
standard deviation)
D. Normal curve, standard deviations
5. Inferential statistics – statistical significance
A. Ethics in research: (Informed consent, Protect from harm and discomfort,
confidentiality, debrief)
Social Psychology
1. Explaining others behavior: attribution theory (fundamental attribution error)
2. Attitudes and actions: foot-in-the-door phenomenon,
3. Zimbardo’s Stanford prison study: role
4. Cognitive dissonance
5. Conformity and obedience: chameleon effect, Solomon Asch study, reasons for conforming,
Milgram’s study (what did researchers predict would be the outcome of the Milgram experiment? What
was the outcome?)
6. How does the presence of observers affect a person’s performance?
1. Social facilitation, social loafing, deindividuation, group think, group polarization,
cultural norms
7. Psychological factors of aggression and love/attraction
8. Psychological factors of helping others: altruism, bystander effect
9. Social conflicts, social traps, mirror-image perceptions, and self-fulfilling prophecies.
10. What is the difference between prejudice and discrimination?
1. What is the scapegoat theory?
11. What is the just-world phenomenon
Biological Bases of Behavior
1. Parts of a neuron – function of each part and the process of sending a message through a
neuron
i. Differences between: Sensory, motor, and inter neurons
ii. Action process
2. Neurotransmitters and their functions: Acetylcholine, Dopamine, Serotonin,
Norepinephrine, GABA, Glutamate
i. Consequences of an undersupply of serotonin?
3. Peripheral nervous system vs. central nervous system
i. Somatic nervous system, sympathetic, parasympathetic
4. Endocrine System (how are endocrine messages different than neural messages)
5. How can we study the brain: Think PET, EEG, and MRI scans (what can each tell us
about the brain)
6. Functions of each part of the brain
7. Brain’s Plasticity
8. Effects of split brain
9. Right vs. left brain
10. Dual processing
11. What is a behavior geneticist and what do they study?
12. Identical twins importance in genetics – flaws?
13. What is heritability?
14. Evolutionary Psychology/Natural selection importance in genetics
Sensation & Perception
1.
2.
3.
4.
Difference between sensation and perception
What is absolute threshold?
Subliminal messages? Do they work?
Vision:
a. What does intensity determine in regard to color? What does wavelength determine?
b. Know the correct order of light passing through the eye.
c. What are rods and cones?
5. Hearing:
a. Know the correct order of sound waves traveling to the auditory nerve.
b. Frequency theory versus place theory?
6. Other senses
a. Touch – what can influence pain? What is phantom limb syndrome?
b. Taste - What is sensory interaction?
c. Smell - How do we experience smell? Who has the best sense of smell?
7. Perception
a. Gestalt Psychologists
b. What are the different binocular cues?
c. Lightness constancy?
States of Consciousness
1. What is consciousness
2. Sleep: Know the different stages of sleep – what happens in each (including brain waves)
1. Consequences of sleep deprivation?
3. Hypnosis: who is most likely to be hypnotized?
4. Drugs: Tolerance, Withdrawal, Psychoactive drugs, Dependence, Addiction, Different categories
of drugs – effects
1. What will happen if your brain is repeatedly exposed to artificial opiates?
2. What is the best predictor of an adolescent’s drug use?
Learning
1. Associative Learning
2. Classical Conditioning (components: N, US, UR, CS, CR)
a. Pavlov’s experiment
b. Higher-order conditioning
c. Extinction, Spontaneous Recovery, Generalization, Discrimination
d. Watson and Rayners Emotional conditioning experiment
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
e. Garcia and taste aversion
f. Biological predispositions of CC
Operant Conditioning
a. Skinner’s box
b. Law of effect
c. Shaping
d. Discriminative stimulus
e. Reinforcements
i. Positive
ii. Negative
iii. Immediate vs. delayed – which is better?
iv. Continuous
v. Partial reinforcement schedule: variable ratio, fixed ratio, variable interval, fixed
interval
vi. Primary and conditioned reinforce
vii. Problems with reinforcements
f. Punishments
i. Positive vs negative
ii. Problems with punishment
g. Biological predispositions in operant conditioning
Observational Learning
Modeling
Bandura’s experiment
Mirror neurons
Prosocial
Desensitization
Cognitive Learning
Cognitive maps
Latent learning
Insight learning
Intrinsic Motivation & Extrinsic Motivation
Biofeedback
Learned helplessness
Biological predispositions to learning
Biopsychosocial approach to learning
Psychologists associated with each type of learning
Cognition: Memory 7A
1. Define: Memory
2. Explain steps of information processing: Encoding, storage, and retrieval
3. Explain the stages to the connectionism model of learning:
a. Sensory memory (duration): Iconic memory, echoic memory
b. Short term memory (duration, capacity)
c. Long-term memory
4. What is the Modified three-stage processing model of memory:
a. Working memory
b. Parallel processing
c. Automatic processing
5. Components of effortful processing: Rehearsal, The spacing effect, testing effect, Serial position
effect (recency and primacy effect)
6. Levels of processing: Semantic encoding, acoustic encoding, and visual encoding
7. Define: Rosy retrospection, Mnemonic device - Peg word system, State dependent memory,
Chunking
8. The brain and memories: Memory trace, Long-term Potentiation, CREB
9. Stress hormones and memory, Flashbulb memories
10. Implicit and explicit memories – where are they stored?
a. Amnesia
b. Hippocampus and memory
c. Cerebellum and memory
11. What is infantile amnesia?
12. Define: Recall and recognition memory
13. Retrieval cues: Priming, Déjà vu, Context memory, Mood-congruent
14. Forgetting: Proactive interference and retroactive interference, Repression, Misinformation effect,
Source amnesia
Cognition: Thinking 7B
1. Define: Cognition, concepts, prototypes, intuition, framing
2. Problem solving strategies: algorithms, heuristics, insight
3. Creativity: components of creativity
4. Obstacles to problem solving: confirmation bias, fixation, mental set, functional fixedness,
representative heuristic, availability heuristic, overconfidence, belief perseverance
5. Language
a. Phoneme, morpheme,
b. Semantics
c. Syntax
d. Receptive language
e. Productive language
f. Stages of speech development
g. Telegraphic speech
h. Chomsky’s theory of language development
i. Generalization in children’s speech
j. Critical period of development
k. Whorf: linguistic determinism
Testing and Individual differences Chapter:
I.
II.
How do we define intelligence?
What is savant syndrome?
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
What is an intelligence test? IQ
Different theories of intelligence:
A. Spearman: g factor
B. Thurston’s theory
C. Gardner’s eight intelligences
D. Sternberg’s three intelligence
E. emotional intelligence
The brain and intelligence
A. Does size matter? Where?
B. Brain complexity studies: neural plasticity, gray matter versus white matter
C. Brain function: perceptual speed and neurological speed
Assessing Intelligence
A. History of intelligence testing
i. Francis Galton’s intelligence testing: reaction time, sensory acuity, muscular
power, body proportions
ii. Alfred Binet: mental age, chronological age, Lewis Terman, intelligence quotient
equation, average IQ
B. aptitude test and achievement test – know the difference between the two and be able to
identify examples
C. Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale, WISC
Evaluating intelligence tests: standardization, normal curve, Flynn effect
A. Reliability: scores correlate, test-retest reliability, split-half reliability
B. Validity: content validity (criterion), predictive validity
Dynamics of intelligence
A. Are intelligence scores stable over life span?
B. Low extreme: intellectual disability
i. Mental retardation, down syndrome (21st chromosome), mainstreamed
ii. Classifications of intellectual disability: levels and adaptation to demands of life
C. High Extreme
i. Terman’s study of gifted, self-fulfilling prophecy, appropriate developmental
placement (tracking students)
Genetic and environmental influences on intelligence
A. Twin and adoption studies: polygenetic, adoptive children studies
B. Heritability
C. Environmental influences: tutored human enrichment, targeted training, schooling and
intelligence (project head start)
D. Gender similarities and differences: spelling, verbal ability, nonverbal ability, sensation,
emotion-detecting ability, math and spatial aptitudes
E. Ethnic similarities and ethnic differences
F. The question of bias: two meaning of bias (popular sense/scientific sense), test-taker’s
expectations (stereotype threat)